


There Is No Party

by murderofonerose (atmilliways)



Category: Metalocalypse
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-07
Updated: 2018-02-07
Packaged: 2019-03-15 04:31:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13605585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atmilliways/pseuds/murderofonerose
Summary: It’s Charles’ birthday.





	1. Before

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally Posted: Jun 10, 2010 on LiveJournal  
> Set: Before the season 2 finale, and then a little bit after.  
> Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Charles’ birthday came just like any other day.

The boys didn’t know. They’d never asked about it, and Charles had never seen any reason to tell them. This was not the first birthday he’d worked through for Dethklok and, in all honesty, he preferred it that way. But he did, however self-consciously, allow himself a small moment of celebration each year – or, at the very least, recognition – by taking a noisemaker out of he darkest corner of his desk drawers and blowing into it at the exact time of his birth, 7:06 am.

It was 7:04. Charles dutifully took the noisemaker out. It was the same one each year, saved from Dethklok’s first release party, which had happened to coincide with New Year’s Eve (the same year the ball in Times Square had fallen, literally, and crushed dozens of people at the stroke of midnight). 

7:05. The decorative foil on the noisemaker was starting to peel back from the cardboard edges and some of the streamers on the end were missing. It glittered dark red in the morning light. He put it to his lips.

7:06. Suddenly the door to his office opened. But Charles was already committed; he blew out with a loud HONK. 

Nathan squinted blearily at him, hair tousled and still wearing the rumpled clothes of the day before. Last time Charles had checked the security cameras he’d been passed out on a couch in the main room, much like the rest of the band and a selection of groupies. 

“…What the hell?”

Charles hastily put the noisemaker down and out of sight. 

“Good morning, Nathan,” he said calmly.

“Fuck mornings,” Nathan replied automatically, grumbling, as he came into the office. “The hoods said there’s no more booze ‘cause we drank it all.”

“Yes.”

Nathan glared at him. “That’s not supposed to happen.” Almost quietly (for Nathan), he stomped closer and dropped into one of the chairs in front of Charles’ desk, hiding behind his hair from the light streaming in through the windows.

“Well, the drinks staff is in the process of restocking now. It’s just that, ah, you boys usually aren’t awake this early after depleting the stores like that.”

“Hnn.” From the looks of it, Nathan still had too much alcohol in his system to process much. “What about you, Offdensen? You throwing a party in here or something?”

Charles raised an eyebrow. Under the circumstances it was difficult to tell if this was a genuine question or an attempt to get into his stash of good brandy. (The latter was usually something Pickles would try, but all of them had at least once. Somehow, only Nathan ever seemed to succeed.) “No,” he said. “There is no party.”

“Then what about the…” Nathan held a fist up to his face and blew on it, attempting to mime what he’d just seen. “You know. The party noise… thing.” He tilted his head to one side, caught sight of it behind a stack of papers, and pointed. “That thing.”

With a sigh, Charles picked up the noisemaker and put it back in his desk, while Nathan watched with vague curiosity. “If you must know, it’s my birthday.”

“Oh.” Nathan blinked. “Hey, hey— How old’re you?”

“Old enough to be your manager,” Charles replied, deadpan.

After a second or two of processing, Nathan grinned. “Heh. So you’re, like… celebrating your birthday by yourself.” He looked around, didn’t see any drinks, and added, “Without any booze. Brutal.”

“I’m glad you approve,” Charles said. He allowed himself a faint smile. 

After years of working through his birthday, it was kind of nice to have someone actually acknowledge it.


	2. After

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally Posted: Jun 10, 2010 on LiveJournal  
> Set: After the season 2 finale.  
> Disclaimer: I own nothing.

A year later, Charles’ birthday came just like any other day. Nathan, miraculously, remembered it. 

He got up early – well, before noon anyway – and made his way through the half-finished halls, picking his way through construction equipment and the occasional pile of building materials to the manager’s empty office. The damage hadn’t been very bad there, and the repairs had actually been finished. That was lucky because, even though Mordhaus was floating pretty high up, it was raining outside. It would’ve sucked to sit at a dead guy’s desk, wishing he were still alive, in the rain. 

It sucked anyway. Nathan didn’t know how to do this business shit. He’d always assumed that it was just hard because it was boring, but he’d figured out pretty quickly after the klokateer’s paychecks started bouncing that sooner or later, without Charles, everything was going to end up totally, royally fucked.

The noisemaker took a while to find. Charles had hidden it in the drawer with all their medical files, in the very back behind the dental records, and naturally that was the last place Nathan looked. He took it out and rolled it between his fingers. Last year, Charles had been in a good mood and actually offered him something to drink, without even being asked. (There was nothing left of the good brandy now; all they had was crappy, dirt-cheap beer.) That had been pretty decent of him. That was the only reason, Nathan swore to himself, that he was going to do this. 

He held the beat up old noisemaker to his lips and blew. It made a quiet honk sound. Then he quickly put it away, back behind the dentist stuff, shut the drawer, and hastily left the office. 

As the door slammed shut behind Nathan, the colorless outline of a man in a suit and tie sat down in the empty desk chair.

“For the record,” it whispered in a quiet, far-away voice, “I’ll be coming back soon.”

 


End file.
